Geoff Calkins’ story in The Commercial Appeal Sunday, “Life after heroin,” put a face on drug addiction that should change the perception about where the drug problem in Memphis is centered.

Calkins pointed out that Memphis has a heroin problem — one that saw deaths from heroin use rise from 11 in 2010 to 42 in 2013 and five so far this year.

Most of the victims are white, and most hail from middle- or upper-class backgrounds and homes — not, as popular stereotypes of drug users would have it, from Memphis’ lower-income inner-city neighborhoods.

And the Drug Enforcement Administration says the surge in deaths here mirrors a growing heroin epidemic across the nation. Heroin-overdose deaths in the United States rose by 45 percent from 2006 to 2010, and the amount of heroin seized each year on the Mexican border was up nearly four times from 2008 to 2012.

Those who stepped up and openly spoke to Calkins about their past heroin addiction should be commended for their willingness to talk about how they became addicted.

Their stories should be a warning to other Memphians, especially teenagers and young adults, about the often life-wrecking consequences of using heroin.

Calkins’ story also provides a warning to the parents of teenagers to be vigilant in watching for behavior by their children that could indicate a possible drug problem. That not only includes heroin use, but also abuse of prescription medications, especially pain killers.

Over the last decade, more than 8,000 Tennesseans died from a drug overdose. Many of those deaths were accidental and involved prescription opiates. As laws have been passed that make it harder to obtain such prescription drugs, the price to buy them illegally on the street has increased.

According to authorities, that has resulted in some opiate abusers turning to heroin, which is less expensive and provides a more intense high.

The heroin epidemic also should reinforce the responsibility physicians have to avoid overprescribing opiates such as hydrocodone and oxycodone for pain. As a person’s tolerance for these drugs increases, the medicines become less effective, leading the abusers to use more or seek the cheaper, more intense high given by heroin.

The young men and women who stepped up and talked to Calkins about their heroin addiction are success stories. But too many young people, in Memphis and across the country, are dying from the use of a drug which gives immediate gratification but always comes with Death and his sickle lurking nearby.